Editor’s Note: For almost two years now, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. There have been moments of greatness (the Nationals winning the World Series last year, the first two months of last college basketball season). There have been moments of frustration (the second two months last college basketball season). Overall, the results have been positive, with an average return on investment, per pick, of 6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 927 published picks, not including pending futures. And while 6% might not be a great annual return on overall investments, if you strategize well with timing, you can turn daily 6%’s into a whole lot more than 6% over the course of a year.
Use these picks at your own risk. Only you are responsible for any money you lose, and you should not bet more than you can afford to lose. If you have a gambling problem, get help.
Lines for these come from the Vegas Consensus or the closest approximation available at the time picks are written, unless otherwise noted. The blurbs aren’t always explanations of the picks—sometimes they are, but often they’re just notes related to the contest, to avoid redundancy. Data and predictions from FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks. Data from Baseball Savant and ESPN is also often used.
First off, some futures. Last week, I put in ten of these. The goal is to spend ten units a week building a portfolio, as long as the opportunities are there. As with last week, I’m using Bovada’s odds due to the difficulty of finding consistent and current Vegas consensus odds on MLB futures.
Interestingly, Bovada doesn’t have any futures available right now on division championships, which is disappointing given my hope that I’d be able to put another unit on Cleveland this week, and given the general rule of thumb that more options is better when looking for good ones. Nevertheless, there’s some action available, so we’ll be putting four more units on the World Series and three more on each ALCS, still remaining in a situation for each of those markets in which any win equates to within-market profitability. I’ll break these down by team, and include my best guess as to what’s causing each pick to be undervalued by the market:
Houston
They made it in here last week as well, but the odds are still good, at least in the World Series market. They’re a good team even without Verlander, and Verlander could yet be back this year. Better yet, they’re the second-best team in the AL if not the overall best. Seems like the value here’s coming from an overvaluation of the Yankees and either an overestimation of sign-stealing’s impact or a simple reluctance to support sign-stealers.
Pick: Houston to win World Series +1100. Low confidence.
Tampa Bay
Again, the Yankees are likely overvalued, and the Rays are the best foil from within the division. The best bullpen in baseball isn’t meaningless, either.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win ALCS +750. Low confidence.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win World Series +1600. Low confidence.
Oakland
As with the Rays, the bullpen is meaningful here, but so is Ramón Laureano. The center fielder put up 3.9 WAR in just 481 PA’s last year, and is off to a scorching start over this season’s first five days. It’s not just Semien, Chapman, and Olson—and even if it was, that’d still be quite a bit.
Pick: Oakland to win ALCS +1200. Low confidence.
Cleveland
It’s possible Cleveland won’t trade Francisco Lindor, and if they do, they’ll likely structure it in such a way that they get a good deal of present value in return. In the coronavirus season, it’s even riskier than normal to put so much weight on a few players, but if you’re going to choose two, Lindor and José Ramírez are a good two to choose.
Pick: Cleveland to win ALCS +1300. Low confidence.
Pick: Cleveland to win World Series +2500. Low confidence.
Chicago (NL)
The Cubs are off to a hot start, leading the division by a game and a half already. Yes, that isn’t much after a four-or-five game sample, but leading the division at the end of July with the best roster in the division and a favorable short-term schedule is promising, especially when the byproduct of early wins has been losses by two of your three-parted competition within the division. Factor in our next topic, and the Cubs could have a better playoff draw than they’ve seen since 2016.
Pick: Chicago (NL) to win NLCS +1200. Low confidence.
San Diego
Fernando Tatís Jr. Manny Machado. Tommy Pham.
All names you want on your roster, and while it’s not as deep as that of the Dodgers, it’s gotten a small head start. They’re still a longshot to win the NL West, but they’ve got the pieces to stay in the race, and the strong bullpen gives them a shot in October.
Pick: San Diego to win NLCS +1800. Low confidence.
Pick: San Diego to win World Series +3500. Low confidence.
Colorado
It shouldn’t be understated how bad the Rockies lineup is outside of Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story. It also shouldn’t be understated how good Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story are. 100-to-1 odds? Take ‘em.
Pick: Colorado to win NLCS +10000. Low confidence.
***
Now, daily picks.
Arizona @ Texas
The scoring has been low over the Rangers’ homestand so far, peaking at seven runs scored on Sunday. Even so, it’s early, and the new park factor in Arlington would have to be lower than all but that of three ballparks to make this no longer one of the day’s better plays. Even then, it’d still just be a mediocre play, as opposed to an expected loser.
Pick: Over 8 (+100). Low confidence.
St. Louis @ Minnesota
Rich Hill returns to the mound tonight, now 40 years old. His FIP’s been consistently worse than his ERA since his career resurrected in Boston, but last year’s was an especially wide gap—4.10 compared to 2.45. Even applying a roughly average gap from his previous years to this year, and factoring in a bit more aging, time might be running short on the Dick Mountain era. If not running out.
Pick: St. Louis to win +150. Low confidence.
